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our anniversary dinner
Jul. 3rd, 2015 04:48 pmOne of our wedding presents last year was a very generous gift certificate to the Inn at Little Washington, a consistently well-reviewed extremely swank restaurant about 70 miles from here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. Swank enough that even with the gift cert we couldn't possibly have dinner and stay overnight. So we planned to go for our first anniversary; and thanks to some scheduling difficulties, that commemoration ended up being last night. (Our actual anniversary was May 25.)
The place runs tasting menus, which we'd never done before. (They also take spectacular individual care of you, as they should; I told them ahead of time that I couldn't have mushrooms or fresh pineapple, which they put in the computer at the time we made the reservation, and we could swap courses from one tasting menu to another, probably within reason.) We didn't take pictures, but here is a blow-by-blow rundown of the fanciest dinner we've ever had:
( hors d'oeuvres )
For actual dinner, I'd ordered the second menu with wine pairings and one substitution from the first menu; Himself had ordered the first menu straight up with no wine.
( soup )
They also brought us bread--tiny slices of a rye multigrain that had been heavily salted on the top of the loaf before slicing, and really tasty poppyseed mini-baguettes. We realized after we finished the bread that at this joint a bread plate is like a water glass, i.e., they'll keep bringing you more every time they see you're out, so we laid off the bread pretty promptly after that.
( first )
( second )
( third )
( fourth )
( fifth )
Before dessert, they brought us tiny homemade creamsicles--homemade orange sorbet and vanilla ice cream, each of which was lovely and which together were fantastic. To be fair, that's the point of a creamsicle, so I'm not actually going to give them credit in this case for finding two great tastes that taste great together. Execution was right on, though.
( dessert )
I don't have a lot else to say. The whole experience was about five leagues above the nicest dinner we'd normally ever go to on our own. I may be converted to the tasting-menu concept, but one won't be able to go back to the Inn at Little Washington until--many years and a great deal of disposable income in the future. Hell of an anniversary present, though.
The place runs tasting menus, which we'd never done before. (They also take spectacular individual care of you, as they should; I told them ahead of time that I couldn't have mushrooms or fresh pineapple, which they put in the computer at the time we made the reservation, and we could swap courses from one tasting menu to another, probably within reason.) We didn't take pictures, but here is a blow-by-blow rundown of the fanciest dinner we've ever had:
( hors d'oeuvres )
For actual dinner, I'd ordered the second menu with wine pairings and one substitution from the first menu; Himself had ordered the first menu straight up with no wine.
( soup )
They also brought us bread--tiny slices of a rye multigrain that had been heavily salted on the top of the loaf before slicing, and really tasty poppyseed mini-baguettes. We realized after we finished the bread that at this joint a bread plate is like a water glass, i.e., they'll keep bringing you more every time they see you're out, so we laid off the bread pretty promptly after that.
( first )
( second )
( third )
( fourth )
( fifth )
Before dessert, they brought us tiny homemade creamsicles--homemade orange sorbet and vanilla ice cream, each of which was lovely and which together were fantastic. To be fair, that's the point of a creamsicle, so I'm not actually going to give them credit in this case for finding two great tastes that taste great together. Execution was right on, though.
( dessert )
I don't have a lot else to say. The whole experience was about five leagues above the nicest dinner we'd normally ever go to on our own. I may be converted to the tasting-menu concept, but one won't be able to go back to the Inn at Little Washington until--many years and a great deal of disposable income in the future. Hell of an anniversary present, though.